


Substitute

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26503882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: Thinking that Charles will never go for Max, Hawk offers himself as a replacement.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Substitute

**Author's Note:**

  * For [peaceloveandjocularity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peaceloveandjocularity/gifts).



He just saw the white ghost of the coat’s edge out of the corner of his eye, just knew there was a doctor behind him. 

Hands settled on his hips and he froze. 

Then a hand broke away to slip up the his neck, tangling in his hair. Kisses followed, a wanting mouth warm on the back of his neck. Klinger closed his eyes and offered his throat for more kisses. 

“Charles…”

_ Charles!?  _

_ He _ was the toast of the nursing staff - and half the corpsman! And that didn’t include his drive-by and fly by night romances with visiting personnel. And this tiny slip of a Corporal wanted  _ Charles?  _ Charles with his thinning hair and rounded belly? Charles who, as far as Pierce knew, had never pleased anyone in his life? Well, there really was, it seemed, no accounting for taste.

“Charles, huh?”

Klinger whirled and looked scandalized. “Hey! You didn’t… you shouldn’t have done that, sir!” 

“Don’t look so pretty standing all alone then.”

Klinger’s glare was quite fierce but Hawk ignored it. 

“You’d be singing a different tune if I pronounced Harvard as ‘Haavaad,’ though, huh?"

"Don't tell Major Winchester, please." His eyes were desperate. “Please, Captain? I need my benefits when this is over.” 

Pierce was far more interested in what had happened when he’d counterfeited that voice. He was almost certain Max had shivered. “He’ll never go for it, Klinger.”

“I know.” 

He couldn’t help but admire Klinger in that moment; the young man, skirt knocked askew by his grasping hands, didn’t bother to hide the fact that it hurt, the truth Hawk had spoken, but his chin was lifted and he faced it as bravely as he faced sentry duty.  _ There ought to be a medal for the those who stay at their posts _ , Pierce thought, then. It was easy not to run if you weren’t terrified. If you were, but didn’t run… Klinger definitely deserved a little reward. 

“I’ve got a little proposition for you, Klinger.”

No trust entered those dark eyes… and (far more of a blow as far as Hawkeye Pierce was concerned) no  _ lust  _ either. “I can’t get you your Major - he’s way too stuck up for that - but you heated up just fine when you thought I was him. I’ll do the voice for you, you close your eyes and pretend I’m rich and pompous or whatever it is that’s getting under your skin, and we’ll have a real good time. Tomorrow in the supply tent?” 

Klinger bit his lip. It was wrong, he knew that, but what other chance was he going to get? It had taken every bit of extra energy he had to win Charles’ sometime friendship (cut with a healthy dose of pure prejudice); he was never going to have more. He confided this to Hawk, then, quietly told him his reservations. 

“Calm down, Klinger. You’ve heard of playing doctor, right?” 

“Sure.”

“Well, we’re just going to add a little twist.” He winked. “Call it ‘playing Major.’” 

Pretend to have Charles’ huge hands burrowing under his clothes? Actually wanting to touch him? Pretend to have that mouth (the man’s lips were such a pretty rose petal shade and Max  _ knew _ they’d be as soft)  _ willingly  _ kissing him? The price was joining the Hawkeye Pierce conquest club, of course, but whose business was that but his? 

“You really think you can do the voice?”

“My dear Maaaax, are you questioning the prowess of a Winchester? I assure you that I am as capable in this as I am at all else I have, ah, turned my hands to.” 

“I’m in.”

***

The camp hadn’t gone to blackout conditions yet, but everyone knew they were in the pre-blackout stages of misery. Fuel was running low, the wind bit like a snake, and everything that could be conserved or reserved (also known as too little too late) was being subjected to rationing. This meant the supply tent was dark (its light bulbs might be needed in the OR any day now unless they wanted to try operating by headlights again); in the dim, Hawk’s white coat glimmered. 

Klinger, he saw, had taken care with his costume. It irked Pierce, but he got it; the Corporal saw it as dressing fine as he could for a man accustomed, from birth, to the very best. 

“You are a vision, my dear,” he said - and wondered if Charles ever got tired of talking that way. 

“Major…”

Pierce fought off a chuckle; he heard Klinger call Charles that every day. He hadn’t realized he was hearing a pet name! He thought about how terrifically scandalized Charles would have been to discover the gentle corruption of his rank. “Calm yourself, precious. I will make this night as sweet for you as the finest wines.” 

His hands settled then, one at Max’s too-thin waist (they really needed to feed the kid) the other on the dress’s zipper. He lowered it one-seventeenth of an inch before he heard, “That is quite enough.” 

Pierce had never credited his fellow surgeon with a single iota of grace, but Charles swept in and swept  _ up  _ Maxwell like a dancer, removing him from the reach of Hawkeye’s hands. 

“What the hell!?” 

“Pierce, you may recall a telegram from Boston General informing me of my ascension to a job that I will now never have or hold.” He paused to gently restore the barely lowered zipper. “You may consider the darling man in my arms your answer to that telegram, for you shall certainly never hold him.” 

Hawkeye gaped as the dark, adoring eyes of what he was beginning to recognize as a co-conspirator looked up at Charles. That warm gaze, he could tell even in the dim light, was practically  _ starry _ . “How was I, Major baby?”

“Exquisite, my love.”

Hawk’s jaw dropped then at the easy way Klinger’s nylon-wrapped legs went around Winchester’s waist. He was seeing them  _ together _ , practically, and everything about them said that what they had was good. 

“You two...  _ Major baby! _ ? You set me up, Klinger!!”

Klinger didn’t even look at him, eyes riveted on what Hawk now understood as the great love of his life. “You set yourself up when you kissed my neck. Shouldn’t have messed with my boyfriend, Captain.” The pride and possessiveness in his tone was something else, Hawk reflected; it seemed that Max might have a little Winchester in him, too. 

He tried to get to Charles instead; the kid was lost. “You let him call you that?”

_ Only until I propose. _ “Maxwell is welcome to call me anything he likes provided he calls me his.”

It was sweet - whipped cream pie to the face sweet, but still. So much for adding Klinger to his roster! “How did this happen?”

Holding his lover up and close seemed to conjure no strain in the surgeon. “Credit there must be given to my dear girl who is braver in skirts than I am in uniform.”

Hawk couldn’t believe it. Not only had Klinger tricked him, he’d gone and manufactured those wide, frightened eyes, had feigned shyness to bite his lip. “You approached  _ him _ !?”

“Just to remind him how great he is.” 

_ You know a whole other side of him _ , Hawk realized,  _ and you saw it all on your own, bright eyes.  _

“I did not wish to listen at first,” Charles added. 

“But then I got sick.” 

Pneumonia, Hawk remembered, which fell under the purview of a thoracic surgeon. 

“When someone uses the breath she had to fight to take to praise you, you must begin to believe her.”

“Her? You going to stop off at Sweden on the way home to high society, Klinger?” He’d read about the surgeries being performed there. 

Charles gripped him tighter. “Perish the thought. Maxwell is quite perfect as he is.”

_ And you’ve had him enough ways to know.  _ “Isn’t that going to cause problems when you introduce him as your girlfriend?” He was being a little petty now but the depth of the prank, how deeply he’d fallen, stung. 

“I intend to introduce him as my fiancée, rather, and money buys one all sorts of protections.” He spoke to Maxwell then, renewing words he had spoken on their first night. “I promise you, my love, you can wear whatever you want, whenever you want. You can be whatever you want with me.” 

It was Hawk’s first inkling that there might be more to Klinger’s costumes than he’d guessed. Maybe Charles had gone and discovered that Corporal Max Klinger was sometimes something more than merely pretty - he was expressing the truth about who he was. 

Klinger slid down but stayed on his toes to stay close to Charles. “Did you just propose to make Captain Pierce jealous?”

“Not ‘tall. I merely said I intend to do so. Rather thought you knew that from the first, my love.”

“It’s illegal.”

“Technically, I suppose. But the family lawyers say that I can essentially ‘adopt’ you as my heir. The two of us will know that you are also my husband, my wife, and my salvation in this place and in all the years ahead that are given to us.”

Hawk found it hard to be mad over the prank now. Winchester was...wow. (And he could still nettle him about kissing Max’s neck... from a safe distance). 

“That’s my cue.” He held out his hand. “Well played, Chuckles. Best man and all.”

Charles’ eyes were those of a friend. Ben… Pranks aside, would you care to be one?”

Hawkeye went electric with pure happiness. “The Colonel will give away our blushing Corporal? Seems fitting considering you tried to get him to give you away via section eight. I’d be delighted, Charles.”

Then he left them in each other’s arms, a happy tangle. But he stopped at the door. “I do have one more question- just to torture myself and keep myself up in my bunk all night. The voice thing… can you?” 

Charles just smiled. Klinger looked wrecked at the mere thought. 

_ Lucky son of a bitch. _ Then he stepped, laughing, into the night air. Well, it was something to aspire to, anyway. There had to be someone in camp he could talk into ecstasy. After all, he’d talked them into everything else!

End! 


End file.
